Lord Ashcroft is a dangerous leftist.

Apart from all the dodgy tax dealings and general unwillingness to tell the truth to the British public, perhaps another line we should be using against Lord Ashcroft and the Tories is that he has demonstrated his support for far-left governments on multiple occasions.

In Michael Gove’s article from April 2000 the current Shadow Education Secretary criticised the Conservative Party’s relations with Ashcroft but also noticed the artful tax dodger’s involvement with a leftist party in Belize:

One might have thought that any Conservative who emerged from the wreckage of the 1997 crash would pledge, above all, never to make those mistakes again. Surely they would steer clear of association with figures, such as Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare, whose talent for fiction rendered all connected with him, literally, incredible.  Surely they would jib at relying on such a man once they were told he was the paymaster of a left-wing party in the country whose interests he represented at the United Nations?

The Guardian has also reported that the Tory peer has been sniffing out business opportunities in everybody’s favourite Communist regime: Cuba.

This is Red Toryism gone mad!

Lapdog of imperialism refuses to serve People’s Korea.

It is being reported that Sven-Gordon Eriksson has decided not to accept an invitation to become the ‘technical adviser’ to the football team of North Korea.

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has qualified for next year’s World Cup – the first time the Stalinist state will be participating in the tournament since 1966 (when they managed to get to the quarter-finals!).

Perhaps Sven did not think he would be able to stand the excitement of North Korean football. When North Korea lost against South Korea in the qualification rounds, the North Korean coach accused the South of poisoning his players. In 2005 a game against Iran (some sort of ‘Axis of Evil’ sporting gettogether?) led to riots in Pyongyang when the referee gave a North Korean player a red card.

Or maybe he doesn’t fancy helping to deliver propaganda victories to a horrific regime.

Perverting history.

I’ve just been listening to a very proud great-grandson defending his great-grandfather’s reputation on the radio and saying what a splendid bloke he was. Nothing wrong with that, you might think. Perhaps it’s even cute. Except that the great-grandfather in question is Joseph Stalin.

Uncle Joe’s descendants are taking a Russian newspaper to court. They are fed up with the good name of Stalin being constantly besmirched by liberal do-gooders. As the BBC report points out, the Russian government has been trying to rehabilitate Stalin’s memory in recent years. Opinion polls frequently suggest that many Russians (sometimes even a majority) think Stalin was good for their country. 

The relatives claim that an article in the newspaper which refers to death warrants signed by Stalin is a lie. The BBC quotes Yevgeny Dzhugashvili (the dictator’s grandson), who is bringing the libel action, as saying that Stalin never directly ordered the deaths of anyone. Stalin’s great-grandson, speaking to the BBC, insists that Stalin never broke any of the laws of Soviet Russia (hardly a convincing defence when Stalin himself had the power to decide what the laws were).

In fact, instead of trying to deny that the gulags existed, which would of course involve having to undermine the reliability of the many accounts of the camps’ existence and coming up with alternative explanations for the disappearance of millions of people, the great-grandson’s main argument seemed to be that our understanding of Stalin has been warped by Western civilisation and its crooked, ideologically-orientated historians. Essentially the Stalin rehabilitators expect that resurgent Russian nationalism and the populist appeal of paranoid conspiracy theories will bring Russians around to their way of thinking.

Even if they are willing to accept that Stalin’s reign was horrendously brutal, many Stalin apologists try to distract from this by pointing out the USSR’s vital role in defeating Nazi Germany in World War Two. Apparently Stalin’s leadership was pivotal to resisting the German invasion.

Rubbish. The USSR defeated the Nazis despite – not because of – Stalin’s leadership. Stalin willing colluded in carving up Poland with Hitler. Stalin spent years purging the Red Army of tens of thousands of officers, thus undermining its structure and pool of experience just before the country faced invasion. Stalin ignored the intelligence suggesting the Germans were preparing to attack. His ‘Not One Step Back’ order, much like Hitler’s, was idiotic posturing that cost his forces dear when a tactical withdrawal from the battlefield would have been more sensible.

I don’t know how anyone with even the slightest humanitarian concern could want to defend Stalin’s reputation. As the Red Army moved westwards in 1944 and 1945 it is thought that at least two million women were raped by them. When asked about the behaviour of the conquering Russian troops by Marshal Tito, Stalin replied “What is so awful in his having fun with a woman, after such horrors?”. Red Army troops are reported to have raped not only German women, but also Polish women, Jewish concentration-camp survivors, and female Soviet POWs liberated from Nazi control.

No doubt Stalin’s descendants take issue with these well-documented historical accounts. I also expect that the mentalists of Britain’s very own Stalin Society will be eagerly anticipating the outcome of the libel case.

More ‘leftists’ the Morning Star might want to revere.

If the Butcher of Belgrade can make the list on the grounds that he was ostensibly a ‘socialist’ and stuck two fingers up to Western sensibilities, then I don’t see why the following leaders were excluded from Neil Clark’s hero-worship:

 Kim Il-Sung

Happy Kims celebrate their independence from the neocon agenda.

The first leader of everybody’s favourite Stalinist dictatorship, People’s (aka North) Korea, Big Man K ruled his country from 1948 to 1994. That makes him the longest serving dictator of the twentieth century – useful knowledge for pub quizes. Kim bravely took on the mighty forces of US imperialism when he invaded South Korea in 1950. His heroic attempt to unite Korea under a single communist government was thwarted when the Yankees kept beating him in battles. Millions of Koreans died in the conflict. Kim was a man of principle and rejected the fashion for de-Stalinisation after Uncle Joe’s death. In line with socialist teachings, Kim’s son became his designated successor. The people of North Korea today live happy and free lives, grateful that their government pursues an independent foreign policy and that they are not slaves to the neocon agenda.

Enver Hoxha

Sticking it to US imperialism.

Another long-serving – and therefore presumably much-loved – leader, Hoxha was another solid Stalinist who made the Communist dream a reality in Albania. When the moustached one kicked the bucket in 1953, Hoxha ordered a period of national mourning in Albania. He even reportedly made the Albanian people swear a two-thousand word oath of gratitude to Stalin “the great liberator”. Like Kim, Hoxha rejected the new fangled liberal ideas of de-Stalinization and was especially peeved when Khruschev announced that the USSR sought peaceful coexistence with the West. Hoxha denounced Khruschev as a “revisionist” and cosied up to China instead, but China soon grew tired of sending aid and Albania became the ‘billy no mates’ of the Communist world. Hoxha left a glorious legacy of labour camps, economic stagnation, and international pariah status, but most importantly he never became a lap dog of US imperialism.

 Nicolae Ceausescu

De-stalinisation is for wussies.

Despite some unimpressive tendencies to seek cordial relations with the West in the early years of his rule, the Communist leader of Romania soon realised that the best way to serve the interests of the Romanian people was to stop giving two figs what outsiders thought of his regime. Just like Kim and Hoxha, Ceausescu was not a fan of de-Stalinization and stood up for old school Communism when it came to domestic freedoms. His take on foreign policy was erratic to say the least (much like his grip on reality) but was certainly not a neocon, and that’s what matters. Admittedly the Romanian people did eventually rise up against him, but even as he was facing the firing squad he did not sell-out.

Tolpuddle Thoughts Part 2: The Politics

The marquee at Tolpuddle is a veritable hotbed of sedition. For example, on one side of the tent you will be presented with the banner of the British branch of the Wobblies – the ‘Industrial Workers of the World’ – who are surely little more than an anarcho-syndicalist historical reenactment society. On the other side you will find the stall for the ‘Troops Out Movement – Self-Determination for the Irish People’.

I’m not going to link to the ‘Troops Out Movement’ website. At the top of the site is the suspect claim that “everything posted here is 100% factual”. I could find no condemnations of Republican violence and terrorism and no acknoweldgement that the majority of people in Northern Ireland wish to remain part of the UK.

Other unpleasant politico-mentalism was to be found in the July edition of Workers, the journal of the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), which was being handed out for free in the marquee. Here is a list of things that anger all six members of the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist):

• When people confuse them with the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist).
• When people confuse them with the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist).
• When asylum seekers come to the UK.

I’m being serious. Those other far-left sects also exist. Presumably when these sorts of people watch the famous Life of Brian splitters scene they do not find it all amusing but nod seriously in agreement with the People’s Front of Judea expressing their distaste for the Popular Front of Judea. The CPB(M-L) is distinguished by its initial ideological love of Maoism in the 1960s, then an infatuation with Albanian communism in the ’70s, and finally infuriation at Gorbachev’s reforms in the USSR in the ’80s.

Since they don’t have so many communist regimes to get excited about these days they weirdly seem to have focused their attention on criticising international migration. Their hatred of asylum seekers can be found within the pages of  Workers. In an article on refugees, the CPB(M-L) writes:

“The increase of migration and asylum seeking has made this a recurring theme in the pages of Workers, where we have argued that workers should fight where they are. Instead of claiming persecution in their own country and finding a way to travel half way around the world to get to Europe, or specifically Britain, they should stay and fight their own class enemy or rebuild their country”.

Elsewhere in the rag the CPB(M-L) expresses disgust at the proposal to grant amnesty to illegal migrants working in London, as this will just encourage more to come to the UK. Lovely stuff. If it wasn’t for their occasional references to Marxism being a good thing, I’m not sure it would always be easy to tell their views apart from those of the BNP.

Another publication being distributed at the festival was a print-out of the Workers’ Daily Internet Edition – the Daily On Line Newspaper of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist). REMEMBER NOT TO MIX THEM UP WITH THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF BRITAIN (MARXIST-LENINIST)!!

The Workers’ Daily was pretty dull, to be honest. It was simply two sides of A4 filled up with the author’s thoughts on how capitalism is nasty and how communism will be nice. I hardly had the patience to read through it once, so I can barely imagine any human being wanting to read the Workers’ Daily every day, and yet the paper confidently announces to readers that a year’s subscription would cost them only £36.95!

The Workers’ Daily I was given ends with the following not especially rousing statements:

No to Monopoloy Dictate!

No to the Wrecking of the Social Economy!

There is a Way Out of the Crisis!

Stop Paying the Rich! Increase Investments in Social Programmes!

For a Pro-Social Programme for the National Economy!

To be fair it was not only minor commie parties and moonbat political campaigns that could be found at Tolpuddle. Workers from the Vestas wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight were asking people to sign a petition opposing its planned closure. 

One of the workers told me that they were planning to occupy the factory this week if they weren’t given assurances that it would stay open, and they have indeed organised a sit-in that has hit the headlines in recent days. Here is their blog.

It seems ridiculous that this factory should be allowed to close due to lack of demand for wind turbines when the government has committed itself to providing green jobs and investing in renewable energy sources. A bit of state intervention here would not go amiss, as far as I can see.

Yes to Ed Miliband going to speak to the Vestas workers!

Yes to maintaining much-needed skilled jobs by building wind turbines all over Tory constituencies!

Yes to using all the hot air generated in the Tolpuddle marquee to power some wind turbines and thus save the Vestas jobs!

Seriously though, good luck to them.

Something else which has amused me

I used to wonder: “what would Communist lolcats be like?”

Now I know.

Translation: "The men I’ve sent to death weigh heavily on my mind; but this burden is but a fist of straw compared to the strain of the republic."

Hattip: www.rolcats.com